What's for Dinner?

     Today, I'm asking that same all-important question--what am I going to make for dinner? Abbreviated, WFD. Yesterday, I tried to make chicken soup. My best friend's mother had the best recipe for chicken soup and chicken salad. A month or two ago, I called my mom and asked her how to make it. I wrote it down then, but forgot to save it. Last night, I tried to make it from memory, and it didn't turn out as good. I can identify three things that were different: 1. My first recipe used fresh, organic, boneless and skinless chicken that still had some fat attached. It might have even been thigh rather than breast. Last night, I used frozen, fatless, boneless and skinless chicken breasts. Usually, you can skim the fat off of the top of the soup, but no fat came to the top last night. I would bet that even though you remove most of it, the fat still must impart some flavor. 2. Because there was no fat, my initial boiling of the chicken was shorter. You usually boil until the fat is no longer rising, but I couldn't tell when that would be with fatless chicken. 3. I definitely over-salted. The last bunch of salt I threw in was too much. When we ate the soup with crackers in it, it helped to cut the saltiness, but now I know that if I'm salting to taste, I should probably take some time to taste. Sadly, the chicken salad isn't as good this time, either. Usually, you would make extra chicken in the soup, then take out a bit of it and shred it for chicken salad. The flavor of the soup stays with the chicken and is amazing. My chicken last night was not as soft as it usually is, which means I either under or overcooked it. I'll have to ask my mom to know for sure.

     So tonight, I have a ton of leftover soup in the fridge, and I don't mind leaving the containers for lunching for the rest of the week. I might pull the soup out again tomorrow and bake up some instant biscuits to go with, but for now, I'm trying to make something new tonight. I have a pound of fresh salmon in the fridge, but I'm limited in many other ingredients. So limited, in fact, that I've already submitted a Peapod grocery delivery order. I can't seem to find the time to make it to the store and purchase the big things I need, so it is so convenient that I can arrange for the groceries to come to me instead. It also allows me the time to flip through online recipes and figure out what I need. I'm bad at doing this in the store. But back to my point, I'm a little strapped on ingredients, so I think tonight's menu will be:

Maple Salmon and Broccoli with Lemon Butter Sauce

The broccoli is frozen and everything else is stock ingredients in my pantry, so I think this should work out well. Occasionally, I'm not the best with pantry cooking, but tonight it will do the trick.

     Anyone, if you have good ideas for dinner, please share! What are you having for dinner tonight?